


on an iron ore vessel your living to make

by bellafarallones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, No Period-Typical Homophobia, Shipwrecks, carnival dates, great lakes steamboat, lake superior gothic, the mothman is more seabird-like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: The hallway was narrow and the ceiling was low, down in this part of the ship. There were no windows. Indrid was leaning casually against the wall, tank top sticking to his skin from the heat of the furnace. His grin was as wide and bright as the engine’s maw. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Relationships: Indrid Cold/Duck Newton
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank u to sam + everyone else in the indruck discord for fanning the flames of my enthusiasm for the great lakes

The steamship  _ Amnesty  _ cut an easy path across Lake Superior, and Duck stood at the railing, planning to take advantage of the calmness of the day to do some fishing. 

“Duck Newton!” The image of a woman had appeared in the water beneath him, as though reflected there.

Duck sighed. “What do you want?”

“The lake has been consumed with storms!” Her face rippled as the surface did, but her voice rang out loud and clear.

Duck looked up at the cloudless sky.

“And only you can fix it! By joining me, at the bottom of the lake!”

“Gonna have to pass on that one,” said Duck. 

“Wait, no -” but before she could continue, her image was shattered by Duck’s fishing hook hitting the water. Then, other than the roar of the engine, there was silence. Duck leaned up against the railing, fishing line propped beside him. 

After a while a door leading from the bowels of the ship opened with a metallic thunk. The man who emerged had pale hair and a thick wool turtleneck, and he squinted a little in the sudden light of day. Indrid Cold, the boilerman. Duck nodded to him, and Indrid nodded back.

Something about Indrid’s smile always made Duck stumble over his words, but a jerk on the fishing line spared him from having to come up with something to say. He grabbed the fishing pole and started hauling on it. Whatever he’d hooked was something heavy, and it was fighting, hard. Indrid was at his elbow, leaning over the railing to look into the roiling water. 

“Can you work the net?” said Duck, and Indrid picked up the hand-net off the deck and held it over the side to catch the fish that Duck yanked out of the water.

He thought at first that he’d caught an octopus. But no, those weren’t tentacles; there were too many of them, black and writhing, with pale flesh beneath. Indrid hauled the thing up onto the deck and propped the edge of the net on the railing so they could examine what they’d caught. It was almost four feet long, Duck guessed, and he recognized the snout of a sturgeon. But this sturgeon’s strange skin was forest-packed with slimy black lampreys. 

“Ew,” said Indrid.

“I agree.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Well, the lampreys are invasive, so. Should probably kill those.” Duck put his hands into the writhing mass of lampreys and pulled. They detached from the sturgeon, their horrible pink faces with their rings of hooked teeth. The sturgeon looked up at him with its dead-looking eyes, but it was alive, fins flipping weakly. “I know,” Duck murmured to it. “I’m going to put you back, don’t worry.”

The lampreys were so slimy Duck had difficulty getting a grip on them, and he killed them one by one rather messily with his fish knife. “You’re not going to try to get Barclay to cook them, are you?” said Indrid hesitantly.

“No.” Duck hurled one corpse back into the lake. “Pulling up a sturgeon is rare enough these days,” he said contemplatively. “But one with that many lampreys on it? I’ve never.” He thought privately that perhaps the  _ Amnesty  _ was haunted; he’d seen more strange things on this voyage than in all his years on the lake before, but he couldn’t say that to Indrid. 

“The lake has been upset lately.”

“Oh, not you too.” Once Duck freed the sturgeon of its parasites he slipped it back into the lake, as gently as he could. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” Duck tried to scrape the blood and slime off his hands. “Hey, uh. Have I ever told you I really like that sweater?”

\--

It was the middle of the night, and the wind and rain churned the lake and the sky together until they were indistinguishable. Indrid, foolish creature that he was, was on deck, gripping the railing with half-frozen hands. He did not fear the raging storm for himself. The lake would not, could not hurt him. Fear for the ship, and for his friends, was what had driven him out of bed.

It was strange, the things Indrid could do. He could not warm his human form on his own, needed fire like other men needed air, but now an orange light seeped through the ridges on the skin of his fingers and palms and into the metal railing, and the ship… stilled. The waves still crashed over and around her, and the wind whipped Indrid’s hair around his face, but the deck remained level. Held in place.

Indrid took a deep breath, and then doubled over coughing from the icy water that had found its way into his lungs. But his grip was steady, and the water that sloshed over the deck ran impotently off again. “What do you  _ want?”  _ he whispered, and then said it again, louder, almost a scream, whipped away in an instant by the storm. “What do you WANT?”

Indrid received no response. He held the ship steady until the waves started to slacken and his very bones ached with fatigue. Then he stumbled back into the cabin, stripped off his wet clothes, and slipped into bed.

When morning came, the storm had been quelled.

\--

For lack of anything better to do before dinner Duck went down to the mess hall, where the scarred wooden table was so large it seemed braced to hold up the walls if they should collapse. He could hear the whistling of the cook and his pots in the galley, but the only person sitting there was Indrid. 

Indrid looked up at him and smiled without pausing the motion of his hands: he was shuffling a deck of cards. His red glasses reminded Duck of the glass front of a red-hot oven, and there was a worn purple velvet cloth on the table in front of him. 

“What’re you playing?” said Duck, sliding onto the bench across from him. 

Indrid laid a card down on the velvet cloth. “If you know a game to play with tarot cards you’ll have to teach it to me.” 

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Indrid didn’t look offended. He only cocked his head and smiled. “Would you like your future read?” 

Duck did not put much stock in fortune-telling, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Indrid’s hands as he shuffled. “Sure.”

“Life, luck, or love?”

“What?”

“What would you like to know about?”

“Love.”

Indrid inclined his head and dealt a set of five. There was coal-dust under his fingernails, but other than that he was better-groomed than one would expect of a man who’d spent all day shoveling coal to feed a steam engine. 

“Seven of cups, reversed. Clarity.” 

Duck didn’t feel like anything was particularly clear. 

“Eight of swords. You may be lonely, but it’s not permanent.”

Was Indrid hitting on him?

“Four of wands. Someone close to you will return home.”

Maybe not.

“The wheel of fortune. Your gambles in the near future will likely pay off.” And then: “The page of cups. New fulfillment. Could be referring to your new job on this ship, but this is a love reading after all. New love?”

Okay, definitely hitting on him. 

“Do you have a new sweetheart back home?”

“No.” He liked the way Indrid’s tongue curled around the word  _ sweetheart. _

Indrid shrugged. “The cards aren’t always clear.”

“Can you give me anything more concrete? Like, in the short term?”

“In the short term.” Indrid reshuffled his cards thoughtfully. “Barclay made pork and beans, and you’ll want to add salt to your portion. After dinner, you may find an amusing diversion, if you so desire.”

There was pork and beans for dinner, and Duck did have to add salt. (Barclay was very quick to explain that he hadn’t underseasoned accidentally; Mama was watching her sodium intake.) Indrid turned a pot of coffee beige with milk and sugar and drank the whole thing down before excusing himself early from the table, as usual. 

Duck stayed seated, even as the others left one by one, waiting for the promised entertainment. Eventually he followed the sound of clanging pots into the galley. “Is there going to be a game night or something?”

“Hm?” Barclay was elbow-deep in soapy water. 

“Indrid said there’d be an ‘amusing diversion’ after dinner, and he was right about what was for dinner, so I figured he might know something.”

“Not that I know of?” Barclay looked confused for a moment, and then broke into a smile. “Oh, was he giving you a love reading?”

“Yes?”

“He only does that when he’s trying to pick someone up. The ‘amusing diversion’ is him.”

“Oh.” Duck looked around. “I’m gonna, uh. Go?”

Barclay laughed. “Have fun.”

Duck half-sprinted down the stairs towards the boiler room. The hallway was narrow and the ceiling was low, down in this part of the ship. There were no windows. Indrid was leaning casually against the wall, tank top sticking to his skin from the heat of the furnace. His grin was as wide and bright as the engine’s maw. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Barclay was a trustworthy source, so Duck was confident in that regard, but he still wasn’t sure what tact to take. “You were flirting with me,” he said, half-incredulously. 

Indrid’s blush was visible even in the red light of the boiler. And he looked nervous, unsure of himself.

Duck softened his tone. “The cards should have told you, with a thickheaded guy like me you gotta be clearer about what you’re driving at.” Now there was only a few inches between them.

A smile ghosted across Indrid’s lips. “I shall give them a stern talking-to for their bad advice.” 

“You wanna know what I want?” This close Duck could see beneath Indrid’s glasses his gaze darting from Duck’s eyes to his lips.

“Enlighten me.”

“I wanna kiss you until you figure out how to flirt for real.”

“It might take a while for me to learn my lesson,” Indrid breathed, eyes fire-bright.

“Lucky for you I’m real patient, then,” said Duck, and kissed him, found his skin smooth and hot as the blade of his coal-shovel. Duck really wished he’d taken the hint earlier, because this was  _ heaven.  _ It felt like only a moment later he realized he could feel Indrid hard against him. “Someone’s excitable.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -” 

“Can I touch you?” 

_ “Please.”  _

The noises Indrid made were hardly human, high little chirps that seemed to stutter out of his narrow throat as his hips stuttered forward into Duck’s hand. Duck thought wildly that at least anyone overhearing wouldn’t guess sex. 

They carried on like that all the way down Lake Superior: stealing kisses when they passed in an empty corridor, talking  _ very  _ blue when they were assigned on deck at the same time. There was nothing quite like facing into the freezing wind with someone and having them ask what kind of dirty talk you liked. And giving such a detailed response that they grew visibly aroused and had to excuse themselves. And having them, armed with what you’d said, later cover your mouth with one hand to keep you quiet and jerk you off with the other while they whispered filth into your ear.

It still wasn’t enough that Duck would be certain calling them boyfriends, or anything. The trouble was you couldn’t ask someone on a date on a steamship. There was nowhere to go. So sometimes Duck lay awake at night wondering if telling someone they were  _ your slut, all yours  _ during sex was enough confirmation to think that you were going steady.

One of those nights Indrid climbed into his bunk with him, under the blankets, and pressed his cold hands up under Duck’s shirt.

“I’m not putting out in the bunkroom with six other people sleeping,” Duck whispered.

“I know. I was cold. And I missed you.” Indrid withdrew his hands hesitantly, but the bunk was so narrow they were essentially on top of each other. “Is that alright? I can leave.”

“More than alright.” Duck wrapped his arms around Indrid and pulled his cold frame up against him. “So I’m your personal heating pack, huh?”

“Mhm.” Indrid nodded into Duck’s soft shoulder. He was still wearing his glasses, and their frames dug a little into Duck’s skin, but he had learned by then that Indrid didn’t take his glasses off come Hell or high water. 

Indrid’s hands wormed back up under Duck’s shirt, but once they were warm he did not withdraw them. And by sleeping in Duck’s bed Indrid had essentially claimed him for all to see. Duck dared to ask, so softly it was hardly a whisper. “Am I your boyfriend, too?”

Pressed together like this Duck could feel Indrid tense. “I’d certainly like you to be,” he murmured.

Duck couldn’t help but break into a giddy smile in the darkness. “I’d like to be too.”

“Happy to be in agreement.”

“When we get back on shore I’m taking you on a real date. Dinner and a movie, or something.”

“Good. I’ll have you know, I’m not as easy as I seem.” 

“‘Course you ain’t.” Duck ruffled Indrid’s hair affectionately. 

Indrid yawned, nuzzled his face again into Duck’s chest, and said nothing more until morning.

\--

They were blessedly close to shore when it happened.

One moment Duck was in his bunk, gazing out the porthole at the blue sky, and the next he was in the water. He fought his way out of the room as water sloshed around his feet, the yells of his crewmates sounding in his ears dead and hollow as a tornado siren. The intact part of the ship was on fire, and then it sank beneath the waves and wasn’t on fire anymore. Duck swam for shore without thinking of the meters of water below him and the strange fish they might conceal. 

The explosion had given no warning. Maybe there was a creaking of bolts a moment beforehand, a sign the engine had gotten too hot, but the only person who would have heard it was the man feeding the boiler, and he would have been powerless to stop it, to cool the fire and lower the pressure of the steam. 

And if there had been a warning, Duck would never know. The others standing on the rocky beach knew as little as he did. Mama had done a head count, and they were all there: Barclay clinging to his largest pot, even the government man Stern looking like a wet cat with his suit slicked to his body. Everyone but Indrid. 

The lake water stung his eyes like brine, and tears streamed down Duck’s face. 

The waves carried no broken body. He must have gone down pinned beneath the steel or been blown to nothing, too fast to know what was happening. Duck had never gotten a chance to take him on a real date, and now he never would. 

“Well, there’s bound to be a hotel around here somewhere,” said Mama. Everyone nodded. Dani twisted water out of her braid. 

How could they be so casual? A man was  _ dead.  _

Mama pulled the purse hanging around her neck out of her shirt and distributed coins. So disgusted was Duck with their carelessness that did not follow the rest of the crew of the  _ Amnesty  _ but took his pay and found a different inn, rented a room and whiled away the afternoon in front of a mug of beer. Not quite as good as Milwaukee beer, but he’d make do. 

As the sun went down, a shadow crossed his table, and Duck looked up.

The glint of red glasses, a faint smile. A skeletally thin frame swathed in layers of wool. “Fuck,” said Duck. “You’re alive? How are you alive?”

“I’m not that easy to get rid of.” 

Duck stood up, abandoned his beer - the barmaid always made sailors pay up front anyway - and dragged Indrid after him up the back stairs. Alone in the corridor he pinned Indrid for a moment against the wall, kissing him, found his hair damp from the lake but his clothes dry. 

Indrid’s surprised chirp turned into a needy groan, then, and Duck managed to open the door of the room he’d rented and get it closed behind them. He tugged at the hem of Indrid’s sweater. “Off. Please. I can’t believe you’re alive.” 

Indrid removed one sweater, and then another, and then a long-sleeved shirt. Gooseflesh rose on his bare skin and Duck pushed him down onto the bed, covering him with his own body, and pulled the blanket up over both of them. 

Duck ran his hands over Indrid’s chest, his upper arms. Yes, he was alive. And more than that this was the first time they’d been together in a real bed. The first chance they had to be unhurried.

“If I’d known this is what it’d get me I would have sank the ship sooner,” Indrid teased. Then he saw Duck’s face. “I’m sorry. Bad joke.”

As Duck looked, he realized what was so odd about Indrid’s skin, something he’d never noticed in their prior encounters, as hurried and dimly-lit as they were. It was perfect. Not only was he not burned from the boiler exploding earlier that day or battered by the swim to shore - Duck had a bruise on his side from where he’d hit the water - he wasn’t burned at all. No scars whatsoever. Every other boilerman Duck had met had scars on their hands and forearms at least from their constant proximity to fire. 

“Who  _ are  _ you?” said Duck finally. He was suddenly almost afraid. Lake Superior did not give people up so easily. “If you’re some invulnerable Achilles who can’t be burned, I think I deserve to know.”

“I saw that the boiler was about to explode,” Indrid said softly. “Not in time to do anything about it. I ran down the hallway, screaming my head off, and jumped out the window into the lake. I was underwater when it blew.” His hands on Duck’s waist did more convincing than his words. 

\--

Earlier that afternoon, a beast on the pebbled shore had plucked charred feathers from its burn-shined flesh and dropped them, one by one, into the innocent waves. “He loves me,” it murmured, as though its feathers were daisy petals, flinching from the pain. “He loves me not. He loves me...”


	2. Chapter 2

Indrid caught up with Mama again in the hotel where the rest of the  _ Amnesty  _ crew were staying, and spoke to her under his breath. “Something strange happened near Isle Royale.”

Mama raised her eyebrows. “Something stranger than a so-called seer failing to see himself blowing up my boat?”

Indrid shook his head. “There’s always a chance of these high-pressure engines exploding. And whether they will or won’t on a given day comes down to moment-to-moment molecular collisions. Quantum uncertainty presents certain challenges even for me.”

“I don’t suppose quantum uncertainty will prevent you from recouping me my losses in the numbers next time we’re in Chicago?” Mama replied, but she was smiling.

“The numbers have never failed me yet.” Indrid was less concerned with the shipwreck that was than the one that might have been. “The night we passed Isle Royale. That storm wasn’t natural. The ship would have sunk if I hadn’t intervened.” He didn’t say anything more, didn’t mention the orange light flowing through him. He didn’t need to. Mama knew the many quirks of her employees.

She thought for a moment. “We’re not passing that way again until the spring at least.”

“I need to go back. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I ran into a captain bound for Thunder Bay this morning. If you want I’ll put in a good word, convince him you know what you’re doing, present circumstances notwithstanding.”

“Thank you.”

Mama clapped him on the shoulder. “Be safe, Indrid. And if you’re not back by spring I’ll hire some other boilerman and you won’t be able to hang around by the fire all day.”

“I’ll try to be quick.”

\--

There was a carnival in town. Colorful flags fluttered on tents beneath the fall-bright trees, and Indrid and Duck strolled hand in hand. Indrid hadn’t understood Duck’s determination to go on a “real date,” but now he had to acknowledge how excellent it was to be together without worrying about places to be or work to be done.

With the teddy bear Duck had won him at the hammer game under one arm, Indrid tugged Duck over to a metal tub full of water, in which floated a selection of rubber ducks. The sign indicated that one could win a prize by selecting ducks with matching numbers on their bellies. 

“Feeling lucky?” said the carnival barker.

“Ducks have done me well lately.” Indrid paid his ten cents and bent over the tub. He picked one duck, turned it over to see the number six on the bottom. Then he reached all the way across the tub to pick another.

“WINNER!” yelled the carnival barker. “Pick your prize, young man!”

Indrid looked to Duck. “What would you like?”

Duck selected a strange glass figurine, small and heavy, of a seagull with its wings outstretched as if in flight. He ran his fingers reverently over the curve of the wings, lending the heat of his skin to the cold glass. Something like envy fermented in Indrid’s chest, and he distracted himself from it by looking around for something to eat.

A man selling cotton candy filled the air with the smell of sugar. “Do you have some kind of all-you-can-eat day pass?” said Indrid once he’d half-dragged Duck over. “Frequent customer card? I foresee myself burning through quite a lot of money here.”

The vendor laughed, seeming to think he was joking. Indrid bought the largest paper cone of it he could. The texture reminded him of the mats of white foam that sometimes formed when water swirled and eddied. He offered a wisp of it to Duck, belatedly remembering the politeness of sharing.

Duck accepted it, but looked dubiously at the volume Indrid had bought. “Stuff like this is always amazing for the first three bites and gross as hell after that.” 

“You underestimate me.” 

They found a spot to sit together on the grass, watching the people passing by. Indrid allowed a bite of cotton candy to melt on his tongue before speaking. “I found a ship looking for crew, leaving day after tomorrow.” 

Duck blinked. “You’re not staying with Mama and the rest?”

“Just for now. Until Mama finds a new ship.” He hesitated, tracking the different paths this conversation could take. He didn’t want Duck to come with him, this trip would be dangerous, but starting a fight would be even worse.

“Please don’t go,” said Duck. “We can get a job at a logging camp somewhere and overwinter there.” 

Indrid said nothing. It was alarming, sometimes, how accustomed he was to keeping his true nature a secret. Did each of the humans passing by conceal so much? He looked over at Duck, at his mismatched eyes, and wondered at what lay behind them.

“Did I do something wrong? Is this about me?”

“No, Duck, you’re perfect.”

Duck took a deep breath and twisted his hands together. “Look, I saw an omen. A bad one. If you go back out this season it’s not going to end well.”

Indrid’s breath stopped in his chest.

“That afternoon the  _ Amnesty  _ blew. When I was standing on the shore, waiting to see if you were going to wash up, I saw this…  _ thing. _ It looked like a bird, but huge, six feet tall, and all black, with red eyes, flying low over the lake. There’s no bird that lives around here that looks like that. _ ” _

Indrid’s tongue tasted foul in his mouth. Of course Duck’s first reaction to his true form had been hatred and fear. “I don’t believe in omens.”

“Don’t tell me that! I’ve seen you with those tarot cards!”

“I’m going. You don’t have to come with me. I’ll be back on whatever ship Mama’s captaining in the spring.” 

“Oh, no. If you’re going, I’m coming with you. Uh. If you’ll have me.”

Indrid considered. He was confident enough in his ability to keep Duck safe, whatever happened, that he could allow himself this. “I cannot imagine not preferring your company.”

\--

In the bunkroom of an unfamiliar ship, Indrid knew the storm was coming. But it would be a few hours, and so he curled himself up around Duck like a vine. And he drifted off to sleep.

The slamming of a wave against the boat jolted him back to reality. The bunk underneath him was cold. No. Where had Duck gone!? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Visions flooded him of Duck hitting the water, Duck’s arms flailing, a wave churning him under and obliterating any thought in Indrid’s mind of his original plan to speak to the storm. 

Indrid stumbled out of the bunkroom and ripped his glasses off, not caring who saw him as he leapt into the air, up and up and then corkscrewing downward, hitting the surface of the water and groping through a curtain of bubbles, flapping his wings desperately to propel himself downwards. 

Duck’s eyes were open and frantic. Then Indrid’s arms were around him and he hauled him up to the surface, dragging him away from the boat. Isle Royale was close, the Quell had allowed them that much, and though Indrid could not get into the air with Duck weighing him down he swam hard through the surf, wincing every time a wave crashed over Duck’s face, relishing every gasping breath he heard, and pulled him up onto the pebbly shore, out of reach of the waves.

The rain was still falling, but it ran easily off Indrid’s back, and he spread his wings to shield Duck from it. Rolled Duck up onto his side, tried to rub warmth back into his arms. 

He’d wake up soon. Indrid weighed the advantages of this body versus changing back until he realized his glasses were gone, swallowed by the lake. The choice was made for him. The first thing Duck would see when he awoke would be what he thought of as an omen of death, and there was nothing Indrid could do about it. 

Duck spasmed underneath him and started coughing, and Indrid’s heart soared. “Ugh.” He curled up facing away from Indrid, and Indrid grabbed his shoulder to stop him from rolling face-first into the puddle of water and phlegm he’d just coughed up. 

Duck whipped around and looked up at him. “Holy shit.” Then he looked back out to shore, at the rain pounding down beyond the cover of Indrid’s wing - which was now starting to get sore from being held out for so long - at the tiny shape of the ship still rocking. “The others.”

“The ship might sink. Or it might not. It’s safer on land, and I had too much trouble getting you here to worry about the others.”

“Thanks,” said Duck. “You know, for an omen of death you’re pretty chill.”

Indrid folded his arms across his chest. At least they weren’t in the future where Duck ran away screaming. “I’m not an omen of death.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Allowing Duck to think that he was just a random monster was certainly one way to keep his secret a little while longer. “If you think you can walk, we could find somewhere drier and huddle up until the storm ends. Assuming you’d be comfortable, ah, huddling with me.” 

What would he say to someone he hadn’t spent months with? Months fantasizing about cuddling with in this form? Whenever they lay together and Duck complained about Indrid’s cold hands and feet, the sharp edges of bone beneath his skin, Indrid wanted so badly to show Duck just how soft and warm he could be. At least the cold rain was a plausible excuse. 

Duck raised his eyebrows. “Beats hypothermia.” They trudged together up the beach to a wind-twisted tree. Indrid sat up against the trunk, and Duck settled half in his lap, between his legs, and allowed Indrid to surround him in arms and wings. One hand settled in Duck’s hair and petted gently, the way Indrid knew he liked. Indrid flinched when a clump of wet leaves fell out of the tree and hit him in the head. 

He looked down and saw that Duck was studying him closely in the warm space he’d made for them. Duck touched the soft down beneath the flight feathers on his chest and warmed his fingers on the hot skin beneath. “If my boyfriend’s in danger I’m making you go out after him,” he said.

“He’s fine.”

Duck yawned. “Mm. Damn right he is.” Then he settled his cheek against Indrid’s chest, closed his eyes, and said nothing more.

Indrid let out a breath he’d been holding since the storm had woken him. It was funny, really, that Duck had asked him not to go out on this ship, said something bad would happen. He’d been right about the danger, but hadn’t anticipated that Indrid would be chasing it. 

The clouds had emptied themselves when Indrid woke up again, and the sky was blue. He stretched his wings, no longer needing them to shelter Duck from the rain, and Duck groaned a little, tightened his fingers in Indrid’s feathers.

Words could not express how glad Indrid was that Duck was not disgusted with this form. Even if Duck didn’t know it was him. 

Duck blinked awake. “G’morning.”

“Good morning.”

“So last night I mentioned having a boyfriend.”

“You did.” Indrid tried to keep his voice neutral. 

“Yeah, great guy. Love him. The thing is, I’ve personally witnessed him survive several seemingly-unsurvivable events, so he’s probably not dead. And he’s also saved my life several times, and my life has definitely been recently saved, so he should be around here somewhere…” A smile was twitching around the corners of Duck’s mouth. 

Indrid stammered, mind sticking like a record player on  _ love  _ and then skipping to parse what Duck was implying. “Fine! Alright! It’s me! I’m your omen of death!”

“Oh, Indrid.” Duck wrapped his arms around Indrid’s chest between his two sets of arms and hugged him. “I’m sorry I called you that. I didn’t know.”

“It’s alright. I know what I look like.” Indrid rested his hand again in Duck’s hair. “...How did you know it was me?”

“Nobody pets my hair like you do. And the eyes… your glasses are pretty reminiscent.”

“The glasses. I lost them in the lake last night. And now I can’t turn back. The human disguise is tied to them.”

“Human disguise? This is what you really look like?”

“Yes. Is that… alright?”

“‘Course it is.” Duck shifted so he was sitting with his back to Indrid’s chest and guided Indrid’s lower set of arms around him. “I kinda already thought you weren’t human. After you survived that boiler explosion on the  _ Amnesty  _ without so much as a scratch. But I thought you were a mer or something, I wouldn’t have guessed you had wings.”

He hadn’t survived it without a scratch. The charred feathers had taken weeks to regrow, so uncomfortable he felt it even in his human skin as an inarticulable itchiness. 

Duck took a deep breath. “And, uh. I’m not totally unacquainted with the supernatural. A lady in the lake talks to me sometimes.”

Indrid blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, like, I’m looking into the water and a lady just appears? And tells me about stopping the storms on the lake?”

“ _ What?”  _ Indrid stood up, picking Duck up with him and setting him upright on the ground. “If there’s a woman in the lake I need to speak with her.”

“I don’t know if she comes on command. I’ve never tried.” But Duck was walking back towards the lake. He stopped with the wavelets washing over his feet. “Uh… Minerva?”

The face of a woman appeared in the water. “Duck Newton!”

She wasn’t Silvain, that was for sure. Too young. And there was no orange light when she appeared, no familiar taste of magic in Indrid’s mouth. 

“And a friend!” she continued delightedly. “Your flight muscles are  _ huge!” _

“Thanks,” said Indrid hurriedly. “Do you know anything about Silvain?”

“Yes! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Duck about for weeks! He needs to come down here and get the Heart of Silvain and bring it back up to the surface so she can be released!”

“The Heart of Silvain?”

“Orange necklace? Ringing a bell?”

“No, but I believe you. Silvain’s not dead?”

“No! What’s your name, by the way?”

“Indrid. Where can I find this necklace?”

“It’s with me, at the bottom of the lake, in the wreck of the  _ Mira.  _ Duck needs to get down here to collect it.”

“I’m really gonna have to take a pass on going to a shipwreck at the bottom of the lake,” said Duck. “Because I would  _ super  _ die.”

Indrid thought for a moment. “Can I do it?”

“This is Duck’s honorable quest! For he is pure of heart, and strong of body!”

Indrid did not disagree with Minerva’s assessment, though he questioned the alignment of Duck’s many fine qualities with this particular endeavor, and judging by Duck’s face, so did he. “I’m fairly waterproof; is that good enough?”

“I think so.” Minerva extended her hand. “Are you ready to save, if not the world, then the Great Lakes and surrounding environs?”

Duck turned to him. “You’d better not die on me.”

“I have it on very good authority that your boyfriend is next-to-unkillable.” 

“Duck, is this your lover?” Minerva gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Somehow it never came up.”

Indrid reached into the water and gripped Minerva’s forearm. She gripped his and pulled him down through the surface. 

Indrid found himself in the dark belly of a ship. The glow of his eyes illuminated wood paneling and tarnished metal fixtures in eerie red. Looking behind him, Duck and the surface were gone. Minerva was in front of him, standing on the floor as though it was flat rather than at a forty-five degree angle. In the haze of the water she could be solid as easily as not.

And there was a corpse floating near the floor, mouth frozen open, covered in what looked like a layer of white wax. Indrid shuddered. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Minerva. She didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Maybe she’d been down here long enough that death had lost all its terror. “The Heart of Silvain is in here.” She created no current as she crossed the room and opened a jewelry box. A necklace with an orange pendant glowed inside. 

Indrid seized the necklace and wrapped the chain around his hand, careful to keep his distance from Minerva’s corpse. 

“You’re going to have to get yourself back to the surface,” said Minerva. “Huh. I guess that’s why Duck didn’t want to come down here.”

Indrid looked around for a way to get out. He could hold his breath for three minutes or so if he needed to, but he was still not interested in lingering. Minerva thumbed over her shoulder, and he found a window just narrow enough for him to squeeze through. Then he was free in the freezing water. Bubbles of air escaped from under his feathers to bob up through the water column, and he pumped his wings and followed. 

The surface was a long way away, but Indrid cut easily through the water. He burst out through the surface and took to the air, only a few hundred feet away from Isle Royale. Duck was standing on the shore, open-mouthed, and Indrid was suddenly self-conscious. He wasn’t as graceful in flight as the lakebirds, and especially not in takeoff and landing. The wind was trying to rip the amulet from his fingers, but he held on tightly and skidded to land next to Duck. 

“Shit, ‘Drid, you stayed down there so long you scared me,” Duck said. 

The wind whipped the pendant around, and even just holding onto the chain Indrid felt magic flowing through his hand. Yes, this was Silvain. He realized he didn’t quite know what was next. 

The pendant, wet from the lake, didn’t stop dripping. It was leaking water, too much to have been contained within its volume, and it wasn’t stopping, and all that water ran out into a swirling puddle at Indrid’s feet. He dropped the necklace and it shattered into sparks. 

A middle-aged woman was standing in front of them. The wind whirled around her, lifting her hair, and she held her arms out and there was another woman in her arms. 

“What were you doing, dear?” said Silvain.

“Looking for you. I tore the lake apart looking for you,” sobbed the wind.

“People  _ died,  _ Quell, _ ”  _ scolded Silvain gently.

“But you’re back. You’re back.” 

Silvain turned to Indrid. “Thank you, my child.”

“My lady.” Indrid kept his eyes down. Even his irreverence had limits. “You should thank the captain of the  _ Mira _ .”

“Does that mean you will refuse my offer of a boon?” Silvain’s voice was tinged with amusement.

Indrid thought for a moment. “I’d like my glasses back.”

Silvain waved her hand, and there was a clink as a wave delivered Indrid’s glasses onto the shore. He ran for them, scooped them up, and shoved them back into his face. Then he ran back up the beach and jumped into Duck’s arms. 

“Oof,” said Duck, but he didn’t drop him. “Now, I  _ know  _ you don’t need me to carry you.”

“I saved your life. I think I’ve earned the right to be carried if I feel like it.” When Indrid looked up Sylvain and the Quell were gone. There was only the white noise of the waves, and the leaves whispering against each other. Indrid pressed his face into Duck’s neck. “That was a lot, even for me.”

“What happened?” Duck carried Indrid up the beach and set him down in the soft grass, then sat down next to him. 

Indrid cuddled up to Duck’s chest, chasing the chill of the lakebottom from his body, enjoying being small enough to be held. “So Minerva’s a ghost and her corpse is down there.”

“Jeez.” Duck looked up at the sky. “She pulled you through the surface of the water and you disappeared.”

“Yes.”

“D’you think that works both ways?”

Indrid blinked. “Yes. If you do it, yes.”

“Sick.” Duck got to his feet and walked back down to the water, Indrid trailing after him. The wind and water cooperated to form a glassy surface. “Hey, Minerva?”

“Duck Newton! Did it not work?”

“No, no, it worked. I think. Everything’s fine. Just. Hey, uh. You wanna get out of there?”

Minerva’s mouth opened in an o, and then she smiled. “There’s things on land I’ve yet to do.”

Duck reached down into the water and gripped her forearm, and she gripped his, and then his arm was out of the water and her arm was as well and Minerva was climbing out of the lake and onto the shore. 

Indrid hadn’t noticed how tall she was when he had wings, but she was, six feet of muscle in a blue captain’s uniform. Then she looked around. “Real good of you to pull me out while you’re stranded on a deserted island.”

“Shit. Fuck.”

“It’ll be alright,” said Indrid. “We’ll be rescued in… ten hours? Maybe sooner; the futures are shifting. But the odds of us dying here are very slight.” Then he saw Duck’s face. “Fuck, did I never mention that I can see the future?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i regret to inform you that floaty rubber ducks were not invented until the 1940s and therefore this fic is not historically accurate. also apparently the widespread acceptance of quantum theory started in 1927. so i'm calling it 1928 in a world in which the only differences from our own are 1) mothman and magic are real 2) rubber ducks were invented two decades early

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on tumblr @bellafarallones


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